Localized-Statistical Quantification of Human Serum Proteome Associated with Type 2 Diabetes

BACKGROUND: Recent advances in proteomics have shed light to discover serum proteins or peptides as biomarkers for tracking the progression of diabetes as well as understanding molecular mechanisms of the disease. RESULTS: In this work, human serum of non-diabetic and diabetic cohorts was analyzed by proteomic approach. To analyze total 1377 high-confident serum-proteins, we developed a computing strategy called localized statistics of protein abundance distribution (LSPAD) to calculate a significant bias of a particular protein-abundance between these two cohorts. As a result, 68 proteins were found significantly over-represented in the diabetic serum (p<0.01). In addition, a pathway-associated analysis was developed to obtain the overall pathway bias associated with type 2 diabetes, from which the significant over-representation of complement system associated with type 2 diabetes was uncovered. Moreover, an up-stream activator of complement pathway, ficolin-3, was observed over-represented in the serum of type 2 diabetic patients, which was further validated with statistic significance (p = 0.012) with more clinical samples. CONCLUSIONS: The developed LSPAD approach is well fit for analyzing proteomic data derived from biological complex systems such as plasma proteome. With LSPAD, we disclosed the comprehensive distribution of the proteins associated with diabetes in different abundance levels and the involvement of ficolin-related complement activation in diabetes

Overlooked post-translational modifications of proteins in Plasmodium falciparum: N- and O-glycosylation - A Review

Human malignant malaria is caused by Plasmodium falciparum and accounts for almost 900,000 deaths per year, the majority of which are children and pregnant women in developing countries. There has been significant effort to understand the biology of P. falciparum and its interactions with the host. However, these studies are hindered because several aspects of parasite biology remain controversial, such as N- and O-glycosylation. This review describes work that has been done to elucidate protein glycosylation in P. falciparum and it focuses on describing biochemical evidence for N- and O-glycosylation. Although there has been significant work in this field, these aspects of parasite biochemistry need to be explored further

Adult precursor B lymphoblastic leukemia in Shanghai, China: Characterization of phenotype, cytogenetics and outcome for 137 consecutive cases

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) accounts for 20-30% of adult leukemia in the West. However, detailed studies of B-cell-specific ALL in adult Asian populations are lacking. We diagnosed and characterized 137 consecutive cases of precursor B lymphoblastic leukemia (precursor B-cell ALL) presented to our laboratory in Shanghai using the WHO 2001 classification system. Patient clinical, phenotypic and cytogenetic characteristics were correlated with outcome. In contrast to Western studies, females (71) outnumbered males (66) partly due to an increased prevalence of the CD10- pro B-cell phenotype. Females with a CD10- pro B-cell phenotype exhibited significantly better overall survival than males. The most common cytogenetic abnormality was the Philadelphia chromosome (PH/BCR/ABL) which was found in approximately 37% of the cases. Cases of precursor B cell ALL lacking the PH/BCR/ABL genotype exhibited a pronounced age-dependent, gender prevalence with a modal age in the sixth decade for females compared to the second decade for males. These findings suggest significant geographic heterogeneity in precursor B-cell ALL which may be of both etiological and therapeutic significance. © 2009 The Japanese Society of Hematology.link_to_subscribed_fulltex